WP: Rice Focuses On Women In Mideast

[kskiska]

U.S. Sees Limits in Rights Battle

BRUSSELS, June 21 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday emphasized the importance of drawing attention to women's rights in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East but said the United States did "have some boundaries about what it is we are trying to achieve."

Rice said the administration's push for democracy in the region needed to respect cultural traditions. She said, for instance, that she had no interest in promoting the high-profile cause of giving women in Saudi Arabia the right to drive. They are currently prohibited by law from doing so.

"It's just a line that I have not wanted to cross," Rice told reporters traveling with her as she flew from Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to attend an international conference on Iraq in Brussels on Wednesday.

(snip)

When the administration began promoting democracy in the region, there was a strong backlash from a number of governments, which accused the United States of trying to impose its values. Administration officials have worked hard to combat that impression. Rice, in her speech, spoke of general principles for functioning democracies, stressing that the United States itself had "every reason for humility" in how it evolved as a democracy. "We have to do this in a way that does not appear to be that the United States has all the answers," Rice said Tuesday.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062100806.html

[Erika]

1. Condi "oilwoman" Rice could care less about women

Or she wouldn't have help manipulate us into the Iraq war killing thousands of innocent women and children.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. That "creature" needs to get a real job.

[FloridaPat]

3. Boundries? Where are those written down? So here we go again.

Democracy for men and we'll get to the women later. BS! Equality for Womena and Men NOW!

Reminds me of a Doonesberry cartoon. Man and wife in bed during the Revolutionary War. Wife is upset that women didn't get the right to vote in the Constitution. Hubby says " you're acting like it going to take a 100 years or more".

And in Iraq, it's pretty obvious the US does not have all the answers. In fact, no answers.

[gratuitous]

4. Talk is notoriously cheap

And so Dr. Rice talks out of both sides of her mealy little mouth. Secretary of Stinkeye.

[kskiska]

5. I'll bet Karen Hughes had something to do with this.

She's working for Condi now, doing PR.

[lumpy]

6. Don't want to upset the Saudis,

Bushies sugar daddys, you know.

[hel]

7. The idea of equal rights for women is not copyrighted by US

And has nothing to do with respecting cultural traditions. Some values are universal, and nobody should respect a culture that murders women just because they were seen with a man.

This is nothing but bullshit, aimed at easing the minds of Saudi royals. She is humiliating herself by saying all these publicly.

[magellan]

8. She speaks of the inequities suffered by her family under segregation

...but makes love to the crises of democracy under the Master/Slave compact of global Pax Americana like a cheap whore. One wonders if any of these people has a conscience that wouldn't rattle about inside a thimble.